How People Made Masks for Their Foreheads

Control but make it Chic

NIKITHA MANNEM

Back in 2020, many people fell victim to the rise of a seemingly dead and buried hairstyle: bangs. While they could never truly go out of fashion, the style was on a deep decline starting from the late 2000s and into the 2010s. So why the popularity today? 

Well, as we all know, 2020 is when the world went into quarantine. No one was outside, online communities became huge, and the long-term isolation that people experienced still affects society. It’s unsurprising that this was the time many people made drastic changes to their appearance for two main reasons—

1) No one saw each other in person, making people feel safer to experiment with their style and try new things without being openly ridiculed.

2) The lack of stability in life due to the pandemic made people want to control whatever they could that had little to no real consequences.

A global pandemic is a lot for the human brain to handle. Paired with sudden and prolonged isolation is the perfect recipe for decreased impulse control. And of course, with any new fashion wave, people will jump onto the trend train without abandon. 

2020 was the beginning of people being truly experimental with their styles and fostered a new standard for personal style and different aesthetics. Hairstyles are a large part of a person’s unique look and bangs are an easy thing to do alone on a random night when you’re having an existential crisis and feeling the  need to change everything about yourself to become someone new. That’s part of the comfort in having bangs; there are so many ways to cut and style them which can be a loud expression of someone’s personality. Bangs became the step passed clothing for a person to test new styles and find control and contentment with their life.